At last the wind has dropped away and we were able to get the courses cleaned up today and actually see some grass on the fairways for a change instead of leaves.  It wasn't all plain sailing as there were only 10 of us on deck this morning, which for 36 holes is very thin.  Priorities come to the fore and the greens and tees are cleared of debris first followed by the fairways and then bunkers.  This mornings runsheet looked like this;

Change holes - 2 men

Mow River greens - 2 men

Spray West greens - 1 man

Blow leaves off greens - 3 men

Blow leaves off tees - 2 men.

That got us through to 9.30am and then we had

Blow off fairways - 4 men

Blow out bunkers - 4 men

Machine maintenance - 1 man

Home sick - 1 man.

When you think that we have nearly 36 hectares of fairways of which about 20 required clearing and 166 bunkers which virtually all needed blowing out it is a tough call to get it all done and not annoy players while we are at it.  The first group in the comp on the West course finishing in 2 hours 45 minutes, whilst excellent for speed of play, only makes it tougher to get the work done.  I use the outfront rough mowers to blow the debris from the fairways and tees and water at high pressure to clear the greens.  Back pack blowers are used in the bunkers and on the cart paths.  With the small crew it is impossible to get the bunkers blown and raked at the same time so apologies for the footmarks in the bunkers today.   

"Leaf collectors"

Blown and playable but a few footmarks

18 River fairway before

18 River fairway nearly clean

As usual at this time of year there is a lot of seedhead on the couchgrass in the fairways.  This is normally controlled by applications of growth regulator at the lower end of the recommended rate which has been applied but has had a patchy result.  No matter how sharp the mowers are they can't keep the seedhead cut so another application will be required. 

Seedhead evident on 11 River fairway.